Champlain College President David Finney announced Monday he will retire next year from the job he has held for eight years at the Burlington college on June 30, 2014. / MADDIE MCGARVEY/FREE PRESS

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Free Press Staff Writer

After eight bullish years in the top job at Champlain College, David Finney decided he didn’t want to blow it.

“I’ve been around colleges now for perilously close to 40 years, and I’ve read about and seen examples of presidents who stayed too long,” Finney said Monday afternoon, after announcing his retirement. “I determined when I walked in the door here that I did not want to be that president, because the most fragile commodity any college or university can have is momentum, and a president, a leader staying too long, tends to drain momentum out of a place.”

Finney, 60, will step down in 14 months — plenty of lead time for the board of trustees to find a successor. A search firm, Storbeck Pimentel, has already been hired to aid in the hunt. Trustee Scott Carpenter, of United Bank, will chair the search committee.

Finney assumed the presidency at Champlain in 2005 after 20 years at New York University. He said he saw a lot of possibilities for the college and was particularly attracted by two things.

“One was the people here. It was the least neurotic college I’d ever seen. There was just not a lot going on in the way of games. People told me what the deal was, and that was the deal. It was very simple, and that doesn’t characterize most campuses in America ... People would walk around and greet students by first name, and students would greet them by first name, faculty and staff. I really liked that.”

“The other characteristic was, it was an institution that had change as part of its DNA ... It really moves with the times.”

Finney said the recession of 2007-08 “was perhaps one of the best things that ever happened to Champlain.” The reason, he said, is that the economic downturn set the nation to wondering whether higher education was worth the investment, a question that Champlain — with its triple emphasis on professional education, a liberal arts core, and life skills — was poised to answer affirmatively.

“Job placement is extraordinarily high,” he said. “Starting salaries have accelerated, and it’s clear that the value of what’s going on here remains really strong.” He said placement rates within a field within six months of graduation are at 85-88 percent. Dozens of majors range from computer information technology and creative media to business and education.

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“It’s a place that was emerging and since the recession has emerged even faster,” Finney said, “because it’s clear to a lot more people that this type of education that we’re doing is right for the times.”

“When I arrived I asked, ‘what’s the most complete education you can dream up?’” Finney recalled. “And you know, it’s a very simple question that, I mean, let’s be honest, has no real answer. But Champlain crafted an answer. And perhaps it’s not the right answer for all colleges, but I think it’s right for us, and it’s a professional program, a really strong, rigorous liberal-arts core, with life skills. The combination of those three constitute an unusual, and I think, really significant answer, and no one else in the country is doing it.” Life skills include financial literacy and community service.

Looking ahead

What remains to be done?

“Champlain is a place where, 15 years from now, programs and curriculum will look a lot different than they do today because the world changes very fast,” he said.

“I think we haven’t really begun to define what the international aspects of a Champlain education should look like.” More than half the students study abroad, but that’s still insufficient, he thinks, for “that first job after graduation.”

The college’s vision statement is ambitious: “By 2020, Champlain College will be the finest small, professionally and globally focused college in the United States.”

“I think we’re making good progress on it. It’s an unusual institution in that there really aren’t many places like this that are small, that offer the types and the range of majors that we do. At the end of the day, our success I think can be boiled down to five and 10 years out, do employers really appreciate our graduates, and five and 10 years out, do our graduates still continue to really appreciate us and what we did to set them up for career success?”

Finney has enjoyed some success as a fund-raiser. The college’s most ambitious campaign will exceed its $25 million target when it concludes in June, thanks in part to a $10 million gift from the Robert Stiller family, much of which was used to establish a business school in the Stiller name. Under Finney’s watch there has been a fairly steady menu of building and property acquisition on or near the Hill campus.

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“We run a pretty lean organization, and donors have been remarkably generous,” Finney said. “On any campus there are two types of buildings: there are residence halls that in fact generate revenue, that given current interest rates pay for themselves, and then there are academic buildings and administrative buildings. We try to raise the money for academic buildings and we finance the residence halls, and that’s a formula that seems to have worked.”

He sees Champlain as an economic driver for Vermont.

“We’ve done OK at that. We need to do better,” he said, noting that 20 percent of first-year students are Vermonters and 52-55 percent of Champlain students take jobs in Vermont after they graduate. “That’s a big deal,” he said. “We’d like it to be stronger, frankly.”

Champlain is looking to offer more on-line programs for adults and more corporate training.

Finney said applications doubled in the last two years and the geographic diversity has also increased every year of his tenure. Tuition has nearly doubled — to $31,250 for the next academic year — but the college has become more socioeconomically diverse too, he said, thanks to financial aid. About a quarter of the student body receive Pell grants.

After he retires on June 30, 2014, Finney said he plans to travel, do some consulting.

“I love higher ed,” he said. “I’m a higher ed junkie, I have been for decades. I read about it all the time, I think about it all the time. I love being part of something that has such a profound impact on people’s lives.” So, he expects to remain “engaged” in higher ed — but not, he said, for 70 hours a week.

He said he had a conversation with his wife about when to retire.

“It became clear to me that it would be better if I left a year or two early rather than a year or two too late. It’s a place that does have tremendous momentum, and I want to leave when that continues to be a true statement and have somebody new come in and run fast and catch the train and make it go faster.”